Versatile Video Coding (VVC) / H.266: HEVC successor

[benwaggoner]

Originally Posted by Z2697

With so many combinations maybe using "AI" to make shortcut mode decisions will start to make sense
That's what "AI" is, or should be: while being more complex than "traditional" methods, it's actually a black-box shortcut (or approximation) to a much more complex solution.

Yes, absolutely. This is an active area of codec research.

[oibaf]

Codecs and DVB – setting standards, not adoption:

For VVC, while there are limited deployments in China and India, the most significant launch to date will be the roll-out in Brazil this year of SBTVD 3.0, with a profile based on DVB’s VVC specifications.

Still, the ‘automatic’ market adoption of newer, more efficient codecs has become less likely with no tangible new application – UHD is already possible and 8K has not, so far, been a success.

[modus-ms325c]

"ok i think we shouldn't be imposing rules on what TV tech to support if no one's committed to ponying up the TV sets necessary to support our rules" is not the take i'd expect from a "standardization" group as "prestigious" as DVB itself, but here we are.

there are currently 3 8K channels currently broadcasting and they're all Asian channels, all of which are still alive and kicking in a climate when such possibilities of 8K broadcasting happening elsewhere proved absolutely fruitless. just look at what happened to poor SES 8K channel in Europe.

[kurkosdr]

Originally Posted by modus-ms325c

"ok i think we shouldn't be imposing rules on what TV tech to support if no one's committed to ponying up the TV sets necessary to support our rules" is not the take i'd expect from a "standardization" group as "prestigious" as DVB itself, but here we are.

The DVB group doesn't have the legal authority to impose standards on EU member-states (or any other country), they provide a "toolset" and each country adopts the tools they want (either explicitly by mandating support in TV sets or implicitly by defining the formats that terrestrial TV stations can broadcast).

This has resulted in some weird choices, such as Greece going for MPEG-4 AVC SD for its analog switch-off (resulting in SD-only MPEG-4 AVC receivers being sold), so when HD came along, terrestrial stations were legally mandated to simulcast in both MPEG-4 AVC SD and MPEG-4 AVC HD (no joke, here are the muxes: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). Then there is France's choice to use E-AC3 audio for MPEG-4 AVC broadcasts (SD and HD), thus making their audio incompatible with Blu-ray and generally a compatibility nightmare with most MPEG-4 AVC players.

So yes, VVC is technically part of the DVB "toolset", but most countries have gone with HEVC as part of their second switch-off (either completed or announced/planned), and it will be a political nightmare to announce a third switch-off. And have to tell people that their still-new UHD TVs can get neither UHD nor HD signals. Which is a pity, because, despite the licensing hell VVC is known for, VVC would still be really useful in the cramped muxes of most European countries, for both HD and UHD content.

[modus-ms325c]

Originally Posted by kurkosdr

The DVB group doesn't have the legal authority to impose standards on EU member-states (or any other country), they provide a "toolset" and each country adopts the tools they want (either explicitly by mandating support in TV sets or implicitly by defining the formats that terrestrial TV stations can broadcast).

This has resulted in some weird choices, such as Greece going for MPEG-4 AVC SD for its analog switch-off (resulting in SD-only MPEG-4 AVC receivers being sold), so when HD came along, terrestrial stations were legally mandated to simulcast in both MPEG-4 AVC SD and MPEG-4 AVC HD (no joke, here are the muxes: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). Then there is France's choice to use E-AC3 audio for MPEG-4 AVC broadcasts (SD and HD), thus making their audio incompatible with Blu-ray and generally a compatibility nightmare with most MPEG-4 AVC players.

So yes, VVC is technically part of the DVB "toolset", but most countries have gone with HEVC as part of their second switch-off (either completed or announced/planned), and it will be a political nightmare to announce a third switch-off. And have to tell people that their still-new UHD TVs can get neither UHD nor HD signals. Which is a pity, because, despite the licensing hell VVC is known for, VVC would still be really useful in the cramped muxes of most European countries, for both HD and UHD content.

on VVC:
problem is, no one will replace their previous TV set that "just worked" with one that can now miraculously decode VVC in addition to HEVC and whatever other codec DVB may "recommend" next, as we're now in a sociopolitical climate where we're now aware of what e-waste does to a planet. their only solution is to pony up for a set-top-box that can (and will) decode every "standardized" coded under-the-sun (not to mention DAC adapters or what-have-you) for an "old-but-gold" TV.

on everything else, this is what i have to say:
DVB got what they deserved.

[kurkosdr]

Originally Posted by modus-ms325c

their only solution is to pony up for a set-top-box that can (and will) decode every "standardized" coded under-the-sun (not to mention DAC adapters or what-have-you) for an "old-but-gold" TV..

Which is where the political resistance comes from: people don't like to be told that their still-pretty-new UHD TV can't receive UHD channels and needs an external decoder box because of something called "VVC".

Also, why are most external decoder boxes so unapologetically shit? They all have the same horrible Mstar or ALI firmware and below-par reception sensitivity (compared to TVs). So yeah, I would be pissed if my still-new OLED needed such a thing to get channels. The only good external decoders I can think of is Panasonic's UHD Blu-ray recorders, but those are expensive because they include a Blu-ray recorder and player and don't support VVC anyway.

[rwill]

Originally Posted by modus-ms325c

on everything else, this is what i have to say:
DVB got what they deserved.

I do not understand this point. What did DVB get? What did they deserve? I mean they are standardizing a toolbox every country can construct their local broadcast standard from. There is not problem with that.

[juliobbv]

Originally Posted by benwaggoner

vvenc is the best open source encoder we have today, but I wouldn't call it an "expert" encoder, nor would its authors.

It's a lot more practical than the reference encoder, but still haven't seen a fraction of the sort of sustained iterative optimization than x264 and x265 have received. Nor was that the goal of its developers.

BY "expert encoder", the VVenC authors mean the app with more knobs exposed to the user, as mentioned here:

The encoder project includes two encoder executables, a simple encoder app (vvencapp) and a full featured expert encoder (vvencFFapp).

[juliobbv]

Originally Posted by rwill

Quite funny when one thinks back, with AV1 its proponents were celebrating that it beats some HEVC implementations in VMAF by quite a margin. Some time after that people started to complain about lack of details in AV1 streams so we got the AV1-PSY releases. Too bad the PSY releases screw with PSNR and VMAF so they lost that point again, but no one is talking about AV1 objective metrics anymore either...

It's worth mentioning that the PSY releases only screw with metrics if PSY features are turned on, kind of like how x264 and x265 work. Turning those features off restores metric performance back (for what it's worth). Oftentimes you can even get better metric scores with PSY releases, in the form of better mean SSIM scores and 10 percentile lows.

Also, the AV1 enthusiast community is actually significantly bigger than it meets the eye (and what Doom9 what makes it to be). There are still people interested in traditional objective metric performance, but many actually moved on to using more modern metrics (SSIMULACRA2, Butteraugli, CVVDP, etc), or have fully jumped onto the PSY bandwagon.

[Z2697]

Originally Posted by juliobbv

and what Doom9 what makes it to be

You mean people at Doom9 "hates" AV1?

[juliobbv]

Originally Posted by Z2697

You mean people at Doom9 "hates" AV1?

Not hate, but there seems to be an overall disinterest in AV1 relative to MPEG codecs at Doom9. If you look at thread count, "VP9 and AV1" have only 61 threads, compared to 776 for HEVC and 6608 for AVC. AVC isn't 100 times older than AV1, so codec age cannot account for such difference.

The compression-related Discord servers and Reddit feel much more "alive" in comparison. So it's maybe a generational difference?

[ksec]

Originally Posted by juliobbv

Not hate, but there seems to be an overall disinterest in AV1 relative to MPEG codecs at Doom9. If you look at thread count, "VP9 and AV1" have only 61 threads, compared to 776 for HEVC and 6608 for AVC. AVC isn't 100 times older than AV1, so codec age cannot account for such difference.

The compression-related Discord servers and Reddit feel much more "alive" in comparison. So it's maybe a generational difference?

Because the newer generation believed that AV1 is patent free. Which 99% of AV1 supporter including their PR were bragging about. They attacked the patent pool as if AOM dont have a patent pool. They only stopped doing that around 2019 when I have to defend the correct usage of patent free every single time, which is what MPEG2 is right now. They want to stand on moral high ground which is what most of the newer generation think is right without considering quality and other metrics. And the whole AV1 is slightly superior to HEVC and moving the goal post to only 10% or about the same as VVC measurement during different stage of encoder maturity.

They also said AV2 will launch in 2020, and AV3 in 2022 or 2023. We are very close to 2026 now. But how many of those supporters said at the time because it is Google they could throw billions at it and do the impossible. What about hardware AV1 decoder? And then what about AV1 actual quality rather than constantly measuring against VMAF?

And how many times do I have to point out those flaws. How many times have i said Google wanted it because of control. Some people only woke up to it when JPEG XL happened. Google single handedly blocked JPEGXL to be included in Interop 2025. Despite Microsoft and Apple support.

I dont doubt MPEG, H.264/H.265/H.266 have its flaws. Patents sucks. But people on DOOM9 long enough went through Divx, Xvid, Windows Media, RMVB, x264, x265. We all knew how much INSANE hard work it is. Spending years if not decades doing quality encoding comparison as a a professional AND Hobby! There are certain marketing lies from AOM camp Doom 9 people see through. And people here cares about actual picture quality Damn it! That is why we are on Doom9. Because we were such a brunch of fools who cares about picture quality enough to spend that much time on it.

If there is a generational difference, then yes the older bunch want something great regardless of most of its surroundings things. Newer generational want something "right" and cheap, quality not being a top priority.


And I believe there are enough people here including myself really want AOM to learn from their mistakes and make AV2 great. But frankly speaking I dont see it happening, they are still focusing on 1 Mbps washed out content.

I am now also at the point happy to simply just use H264. Especially spending more bitrate just to get higher quality. May be AI encoder could further push the codec forward. Bandwidth cost is *still* dropping fast after 3 decades of cost reduction thanks to AI investment and optical technology. As I have said before it is actually faster to have the whole world rolled out 5G or 5G-Advance than a codec going mainstream. Because the cost calculation is constantly changing, going another codec just to save ~40% transfer cost from HEVC is no longer attractive. And ~65% reduction in transfer cost from VVC also doesn't attract enough usage. My guess is that VVC+LCEVC might go mainstream simply because of TV usage. It should also hit close to 75% reduction compared to H.264. Time will tell and depending on patent pool. But Geopolitics suggest may be soon there will be enough countries including Brazil to say no to these patents.

[juliobbv]

Hi ksec,

There's a lot to unpack from your reply. I'm detecting it was written with a very emotional state of mind, and I suspect that this let out some inaccuracies and mistakes that otherwise would've been caught when proof-reading the reply before sending. Maybe it'd be better if you take some time to recompose and reply again later?

[Z2697]

Well I guess some Doom9 user do "hate" AV1.
Including me (just kidding)
I appreciate the capability of it, but I also don't want to join the hype (if there is one).

And the forum threads... you know, the fact is we don't have any handy encoder from VP9/AV1 until recently, the SVT-AV1.
Even SVT-AV1 is... let's say for example how were they think it's a good idea to remove adaptive keyframe insertion on scene change???

[GeoffreyA]

Originally Posted by juliobbv

Not hate, but there seems to be an overall disinterest in AV1 relative to MPEG codecs at Doom9. If you look at thread count, "VP9 and AV1" have only 61 threads, compared to 776 for HEVC and 6608 for AVC. AVC isn't 100 times older than AV1, so codec age cannot account for such difference.

The compression-related Discord servers and Reddit feel much more "alive" in comparison. So it's maybe a generational difference?

In my opinion, Julio, it's because AV1 ended up being used a lot in the anime-encoding community, excelling there, and they tend to use Discord and Reddit today. In an earlier era, the anime community developed key tools on Doom9. If more of today's enthusiasts came here, they would be welcome, appreciated, and it would be a boon to the site.

With mainline libaom, live-action details were ill preserved, leading to a decline, I think, in live-action encoding after the early Scene releases. There was disappointment in many, much like what we're seeing with VVC. But credit must be given to the SVT-AV1-PSY releases that have made considerable strides closing the detail gap. The last time such passion was seen was x264 in the DarkShikari days.

Intrinsically, the problem doesn't lie with AV1, but the diminishing returns across all codecs, especially in transparent quality, after H.264. At least, that's my view.

[rwill]

Originally Posted by GeoffreyA

But credit must be given to the SVT-AV1-PSY releases that have made considerable strides closing the detail gap. The last time such passion was seen was x264 in the DarkShikari days.

Then you will be most thrilled to hear that the Psy-Rd source code in SVT-AV1-PSY is exactly the same as the one created with passion in the DarkShikari x264 days. And there are even several Donate buttons scattered around on SVT-AV1-PSY developer pages.

The passion lives on but now needs money too I guess.

[VoodooFX]

Originally Posted by juliobbv

The compression-related Discord servers and Reddit feel much more "alive" in comparison. So it's maybe a generational difference?

It's pretty obvious - IQ difference, look at those AV1 reddit threads, maybe 90% of peeps there have no clue what they are writing about.

Let's to be clear about it, AV1 is not good, it's a flop. Go next.

[juliobbv]

Originally Posted by VoodooFX

Let's to be clear about it, AV1 is not good, it's a flop. Go next.

Let's agree to disagree here

[juliobbv]

Originally Posted by GeoffreyA

In my opinion, Julio, it's because AV1 ended up being used a lot in the anime-encoding community, excelling there, and they tend to use Discord and Reddit today. In an earlier era, the anime community developed key tools on Doom9. If more of today's enthusiasts came here, they would be welcome, appreciated, and it would be a boon to the site.

With mainline libaom, live-action details were ill preserved, leading to a decline, I think, in live-action encoding after the early Scene releases. There was disappointment in many, much like what we're seeing with VVC. But credit must be given to the SVT-AV1-PSY releases that have made considerable strides closing the detail gap. The last time such passion was seen was x264 in the DarkShikari days.

Intrinsically, the problem doesn't lie with AV1, but the diminishing returns across all codecs, especially in transparent quality, after H.264. At least, that's my view.

This makes sense. The anime community has been influential at adopting new codec technologies, and there has been a considerable migration to Discord and Reddit over the past several years.

I hope VVC will get the same psychovisual love that its predecessors had. The potential is there for sure.

[Z2697]

Let's be neutral here.
AV1 (as a specification) does provide more potential than HEVC.
And it already has its success (you may say it's limited, well but still a success I'll call it).
The problem is the encoder, the implementation of the specification.
Like I said previously, we never had a handy VP(/AV)-series encoder until SVT-AV1 becomes mainstream, and it's still in its "early days" in the psychovisual optimization realm.

==========

And the donations? Come on, they are making contributions (btw only one of them have donation link now), is it not OK to ask for some donations?
Like, what's up with all those donation buttons in many popular open source softwares? Seriously? All those greedy people, can you believe that?

(I agree some of the "donations" can be sahdy, like some of the "AI video enhance GUIs", trash code, trash UI being written and the donation being like nag, or even paywalled)